Governor: New Mexico to provide universal access to child care
Sep 8, 2025 Updated Sep 9, 2025, Published by the Santa Fe New Mexican
By Esteban Candelaria and Daniel J. Chacón ecandelaria@sfnewmexican.com dchacon@sfnewmexican.com
For some New Mexicans, the cost of child care is more expensive than their mortgage.
For others, the financial strain is a deterrent to having children.
Parents and caregivers, a reprieve is on the way.
Starting Nov. 1, New Mexico will become the first state in the nation to offer no-cost child care to every family, regardless of income.
Universal child care represents a historic step forward in New Mexico’s ongoing efforts to bring early childhood services to as many children as possible, thereby improving their outcomes later in life, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said at a news conference Monday at the state Capitol.
“There are so many people across the country that say [universal child care is] impossible — not impossible,” the governor said as she was flanked by early childhood advocates and others.
“In fact, it is the backbone of creating a system of support for families that allow them to work, to go to college, to do all of the things that they need to do to continue to lift New Mexico out of poverty and to provide the best early starts for every single child in every single New Mexico family,” she said.
The Early Childhood Education and Care Department, which has a nearly $1 billion budget, spends about $463 million annually for child care assistance. The expansion would cost an additional $120 million a year, which the governor plans to request during next year’s 30-day session to “fully implement universal childcare,” Michael Coleman, the governor’s chief spokesman, wrote in an email.
Currently, the state’s child care assistance program covers the cost of care for families with incomes at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, or about $106,600 for a family of three. Under the new expansion, implemented through state regulation changes but dependent on further funding from the Legislature, there will be no income limits for a family’s eligibility.
“This amounts to an average annual family savings of $12,000 per child,” a news release states.
According to data from the state Early Childhood Education and Care Department, 21,094 children up to age 5 were receiving the subsidy as of July, marking 42.6% of the state’s total child care capacity — but just 16.2% of the total population of children in that age range in the state.
The state will also provide additional funding to providers that bolster entry-level early childhood workers’ pay to between $18 and $21 per hour and keep their doors open for at least 10 hours a day, five days a week.
How will state cover costs?
Ivydel Natachu, a community organizer with OLÉ New Mexico, a nonprofit family advocacy organization, said although providers and early childhood educators felt assured by the promise of funding to increase child care workers’ pay to a minimum of $18 per hour, many still questioned the state’s ability to create the capacity needed for its new expansion.
The most-asked question, she said in an interview, is, “Where’s the money coming from, and how? How are we going to pay the workforce?”
Natachu added the state must push forward on its plans to create a wage and career lattice for advancement, an idea the early childhood department presented to lawmakers in July.
The universal child care system won’t come cheap, costing a total of roughly $600 million in recurring funding annually.
Currently, the early childhood department spends $463 million on the program each year, paying providers on behalf of families based on rates set to reflect the “actual costs of providing quality care,” Coleman wrote in an email. Rates vary based on a child’s age, the type of care setting and the quality of care.
In addition to asking for an additional $120 million to fully implement universal child care, the early childhood department will ask for a one-time appropriation of $20 million for construction costs to help increase provider capacity.
That total price tag might not be sustainable, said Sen. George Muñoz, a Gallup Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.
“I don’t know how they’re going to explain that to people when they don’t have the money to pay for everyone’s child care,” he said.
According to the Governor’s Office, the initiative would draw from multiple revenue streams, including the Early Childhood Education and Care Fund.
“We’re nine months into [the Trump] administration, and we’ve got some big changes coming,” Muñoz said, referring to federal funding cuts.
“We only have $400 million in new money [projected for the upcoming fiscal year], so how are we going to account for all of this?” he asked.
Muñoz also questioned whether New Mexico has the capacity to provide universal child care.
While the state has continued to expand eligibility, child care system capacity declined by 3% between fall 2019 and spring 2023, primarily due to a loss of registered home-based providers, according to the Cradle to Career Policy Institute at the University of New Mexico.
‘Nannies for millionaires’?
A Legislative Finance Committee analysis of the institute’s report found a nearly 3% drop among children at the lower end of the federal poverty level. The analysis noted families earning up to 400% of the federal poverty level became eligible for child care assistance in fiscal year 2023, significantly expanding the eligibility pool.
“While this means that more families have access to childcare assistance than ever before, the additional capacity disproportionally serves higher income families,” the committee reported. “This indicates the Legislature may want to focus policies towards low-income, high-risk families.”
House Republicans dubbed the governor’s initiative “nannies for millionaires.”
“New Mexico already provides free child care for families up to 400% of the federal poverty level,” House Republicans wrote in a message posted on X after the governor’s announcement.
“Now Democrats want taxpayers to subsidize childcare for the wealthy, while ignoring real emergencies like our doctor shortage, failing CYFD (Children, Youth and Families Department), and rising crime. Gov. Lujan Grisham is out of touch with what New Mexico families are actually facing,” the post states.
Asked why the initiative would pay for the child care of wealthier individuals, Early Childhood Education and Care Cabinet Secretary Elizabeth Groginsky said “the promise to New Mexico was to build a prenatal-to-5 system that was universal.”
Lujan Grisham said more affluent people are likely hire live-in child care workers, such as a nanny or an au pair.
“They’re not going to use this system by and large, so why develop a system that works just in that way?” she said. “I want this to be easy.”
The governor also said creating administrative requirements could be time consuming.
“I don’t think it’s wise to tell people that they … shouldn’t be part of building something,” she said.
Lujan Grisham said offering no-cost child care can be life-changing for families. As an example, she spoke about a Santa Fe couple, both public school teachers, with a 16-month-old son.
“Their income for a family of three is $133,000 a year. Their child care costs are $1,200 a month. They just barely don’t meet that 400% of poverty threshold,” she said.
“For this family, it’s a game changer for them,” she said. “It’s exactly what we want for every family.”
Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, who attended the news conference, said universal child care will make New Mexico “extremely attractive” to businesses and families.
“I don’t want it to be lost on the fact that every New Mexico child … just obtained the golden ticket, from prenatal all the way through to a phenomenal job in their future,” he said, adding the state also provides free school meals and taxpayer-funded tuition.
“This really is a major, major announcement,” Padilla said. “I don’t know if people realize that this opens up almost 13,000 additional slots for child care.”
Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.